Flying Out of the Country? US Government Might Not Let You Back In

People are increasingly flying out of America, or moving away for a spell to work in another country, and finding they cannot return because of placement on the No-Fly list.

In one case, Rahinah Ibrahim, a PhD student at Stanford University, was detained on her way out of the country but eventually allowed to fly away. But when she tried to come back from a conference in Malaysia—one funded by Stanford at which she was doing a presentation—officials wouldn’t let her on the plane, following instructions from the US Consulate.

That was eight years ago, and she’s still stuck there.

Al Jazeera, which reports the story, calls cases like these exiles.

Excerpt:

“In the past year alone, the number of individuals placed by the Obama administration on the federal No-Fly list has doubled to over 10,000, with at least 500 being holders of American citizenship. A further 400,000 individuals of indeterminate citizenship are on a separate “watchlist” which flags them as being “reasonably suspicious” and potentially subject to exclusion. The names of those on these lists are not disclosed and neither is the reasoning or evidence as to why any particular individual may be flagged. The American Civil Liberties Union has represented many Americans who believe have been on the No-Fly list and have been banned from travelling for work or to visit family for reasons unknown to them. In the words of ACLU attorney Ben Wizner:

‘People who are protected by the Constitution have a right to fundamental due process. If the United States government is going to maintain a watch list and prevent people from flying, there has to be some way for people to confront the evidence against them and rebut it.’”

Many of these persons are Muslims or are descendants of a Muslim-majority country. In some cases people are banned from flying back to America after refusing to spy on their communities.

“The subversion of the US justice system towards this end has been a legacy of the past decades erosion of civil liberties and has continued with even greater vigor under the Obama administration,” concludes the news agency.

Picture credits

1: An American Muslim | Flickr/ABajooka

2: President Barack Obama | Flickr/BeckyF